What Is The Best Era of Music?
By: Thomas Davila
The history of rock and roll can be traced as far back as the 1940's with the country and blues genres, and slowly migrated a decade later into what is known today as rock and roll with artists like the great Chuck Berry. It was not until the 1960's that rock and roll became known for what it was: sex, drugs and rock and roll and beginning of the "British Invasion" with the likes of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
The 70's does not get the credit that it deserves as it had its fair share of sex and drugs with the likes of bands like Led Zeppelin and The Who. These bands disbanded after ten to fifteen years after playing as a band. The 80's jumped around a lot in terms of rock and roll with its sub-genres. There was "Glam Rock" also known as Hard Rock with bands like Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses, Poison and Van Halen. The 80's is also known for producing bands like R.E.M., U2 and "The King of Pop" Michael Jackson.
The early 90's was known as the grunge rock era with bands such as Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. That era of rock only lasted about seven years from 1987-1994 after Kurt Cobain committed. Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden remained the only surviving bands of this era, until Layne Staley's drug overdose in 2002. Soundgarden originally disbanded in 1997. They reunited in 2010; the reunion was short lived after Chris Cornell's suicide in 2017. Pearl Jam remains the only band that still performs today.
After Cobain's death in 1994, the remaining members of Nirvana minus Krist Novoselic formed a band of their own called Foo Fighters but have gone through many changes pertaining to the bands lineup. The same can be said after the bands Soundgarden and Rage Against The Machine disbanded; Chris Cornell formed a supergroup with the remaining members of Rage Against The Machine called Audioslave from 2001-2007.
After the grunge era faded away in 1994, came the alternative rock scene and the short-lived punk rock revival with the likes of Blink-182, Bush, Live and Green Day. That trend of music went adrift with the start of the 'boy band" fad. That only lasted about a year or two until the start of the new millennium with N'SYNC, O-Town, among others.
There was a major shift in what people would listen to at the start of the new millennium. Bands like Blink-182, Green Day and Pearl Jam would still be around, but there would also be new kind of rock music called Nu-Metal with bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park. Other bands that got their start in the early 2000's are Coldplay, Disturbed, Shinedown and My Chemical Romance.
As we enter the 2010's we had more of the same from bands like Coldplay, Linkin Park among others that have already been mentioned. Now we add new bands like 30 Seconds To Mars, Kings of Leon and Panic! At The Disco to the mix.
There has been some changes in Rock and Roll within the last 80 years. There is no question that the best era of rock and roll music is when it all started; no, not the 40s’. According to Rolling Stone, the 1950's was the greatest era of Rock and Roll music because on a purely cultural level it succeeded beyond the wildest dreams anyone could have entertained at that time.